The Duality of Carmelo Anthony

The arrival and ascension of Jalen Brunson as the face of the Knicks have brought feelings of joy and hope many Knicks fans haven’t experienced in their lifetimes. His continued success has led many to consider where he will stand as an all-time Knick talent. For many, the top three has remained untouched for a long time: Walt Frazier, Patrick Ewing, and Willis Reed.

A player just on the outside of that top three (or inside of it, depending on who you ask) is Carmelo Anthony, whose Knicks tenure is a story of light and dark - the magnificent scorer that was failed by an incompetent front office and poor roster building. Much of Melo’s goodwill has been absorbed by Brunson for many, leading to a re-examination of Anthony’s greatness. One such re-examination has come from his former teammate, Amar’e Stoudemire, forcing us to consider the memory of Carmelo and whether his Knicks legacy has aged fairly.

Appearing on the “Run It Back” podcast, Stoudemire was asked about his time as a Knick and why the team couldn’t get over the hump. To that, Amar’e said:

The immediate reaction by many fans was to point to Stoudemire’s flaws as a Knick, such as his inability to stay healthy and the fire extinguisher incident. That reaction is reflective of the support that many Carmelo supporters have engendered over the years, and there is good reason for that.

When the Knicks traded for Carmelo, they were in the midst of one of their best starts since the Ewing era. That statement is more of a reflection on how bad the previous years were as opposed to how good that year was. When the Knicks made the trade, they were 28-26 and in position for the six seed in the Eastern Conference.

Despite the somewhat middling record, there was excitement at that time for Knicks fans. The years of misery did not yield LeBron James or Dwyane Wade in free agency, but it did net Amar’e Stoudemire, and the team was competent for the first time since the turn of the century. Beyond Stoudemire’s excellent start to the year, role players like Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, and Raymond Felton were having good seasons. They were all moved in the deal to get Carmelo.

In the immediate aftermath, the Knicks were not a deep team, relying on players like Toney Douglas and Shawne Williams to contribute off the bench. From that perspective, it’s easy to understand why Carmelo would take the lion's share of the shot attempts—because they had a better chance of scoring with the ball in his hands considering his supporting cast.

Scoring by necessity would become Carmelo’s calling card as a Knick, the trait that defined his legacy. He won one playoff series and was a part of four losing seasons. But he always got his points, averaging over 21.0 per game in every season as a Knick. The lack of winning with the scoring tendencies, coupled with Anthony’s preference to get traded instead of signing as a free agent, has painted a certain picture in the minds of some fans in hindsight.

That picture is of a selfish player, one who didn’t care about winning but rather just personal accomplishments and accolades. Many have wondered if things would have been different if he sacrificed the money and joined the Knicks’ young core after the 2011 season. Much of the criticism of that era of Knicks basketball has fallen on Carmelo’s shoulders—but in some ways he was merely a convenient scapegoat.

The Knicks in the first few years of the Carmelo era felt promising, even with the limitations they faced playing in the same conference as a Miami Heat team that featured LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. They had three winning seasons and made the playoffs in three consecutive years for the first time since 2001.

Anthony was playing at a high level, and the team won games despite the disastrous Andrea Bargnani acquisition and the declining health of Amar’e Stoudemire. But after missing the playoffs in 2014, the team felt it needed a shakeup. That shakeup was to hire Phil Jackson as the team’s next president.

I remember when the Knicks hired Jackson. I was excited, thinking that the DNA of his time in Chicago and Los Angeles would help to turn the Knicks into a winner. It may be the worst read I’ve had on a personnel hire in all the years that I’ve been watching basketball. The Jackson tenure lasted three years, and it featured some of the darkest days in this franchise’s history.

Jackson signed Lamar Odom while he was battling a drug addiction. He fired Mike Woodson and hired Derek Fisher to run the triangle in New York, despite not having the proper personnel to execute the system. He traded J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cavaliers for Lou Amundson, Alex Kirk, Lance Thomas, and a second-round pick. He signed Joakim Noah to a $72.6M deal in 2016 that was likely the worst deal of that offseason. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Jackson’s insistence on running the triangle and his aggressive dislike of Carmelo Anthony led to a toxic dynamic for the star. The roster was constantly in flux, bringing in players who Jackson thought would thrive in the triangle. The only problem was that most of these players didn’t see the point of the triangle, which led to multiple “triangle meetings” to teach the system. Jackson recently reiterated his hatred of Anthony, noting that it was a “him or me” situation between him and Carmelo.

Anthony confirmed the animosity on an episode of his podcast “7 PM in Brooklyn” where he criticized Jackson for being a poor communicator and not understanding his personnel, noting that he failed to realize that a player like Derrick Rose was never meant to run the triangle offense. Throughout his tenure, Anthony was given no breaks by the team. They never surrounded him with talent, made poor coaching hires, and the team president had clear issues with him.

While most fans acknowledge all of these truths, the takeaway for many was that Carmelo wasn’t a winning player and he couldn’t get it done in New York. Many of the other characters of that era have been rehabilitated. Jackson is still remembered for his championships as a coach. Stoudemire is mythologized for his time playing in Phoenix with Steve Nash. Even owner James Dolan has had some positive PR for not meddling with the team’s roster in the Leon Rose era. It all seems to fall back to Melo.

It is reductive to simply call Carmelo a ball hog who didn’t win. The circumstances that he was placed in were impossible to thrive in. He deserves credit for giving Knicks fans an opportunity to believe again after a decade of irrelevance. It was never perfect, and he came with his flaws. His moments of greatness were impossible to deny, and he wanted to be a Knick when no one else did.

Carmelo was the first basketball hero for a generation of Knicks fans and always assumed accountability for the lack of winning. It’s not the same as the Ewing and Brunson eras, but for a small moment in time, it was special. And he deserves to be remembered in that way when litigating his greatness as a Knick.